Jon Shafer: Didn't want to "compromise" Civ V by going multiplatform

Speaking to Strategy Informer last week, Shafer mentioned, in response to a question about Ubisoft's R.U.S.E. and motion control with strategy games, how he preferred seeing games tailored to individual platforms:

"My personal preference, and I'm not a policy maker or anything, but personally, I think that if you're going to make a game for PC, then that's what you should do," he said.

"I definitely play console games, I mean the last thing I played is Dragon Quest IX, which is definitely NOT a PC historical strategy game, but It's nice to see games that are specifically tailored to individual platforms."

He also said how Civilzation V was designed the PC, so as not to compromise on its quality.

"You're not going to be seeing that on any other platforms, that's where we designed the game. And because of that we were able to take advantage of the latest tech stuff, Steamworks, DirectX 11, Multi-core etc... We didn't really want to compromise that and say 'Now, how can we make this work somewhere else...'"

Project Art Director Dorian Newcomb, in what *appears* to be a subtle dig at the French Publisher, took a more in-direct approach to answering the question:

"I think for me, I just think that there's an entirely different kind of game that comes out for PC, than for consoles. I think if there's an idea that's appropriate to transform a strategy game into the consoles, then that would be cool."

"I'd like to follow game designers if they have an idea on how a games going to be played, and it seems like that's THE way it's going to be played. If you're just tagging on a certain control scheme or platform to try and take advantage of market momentum, then it's going to be harder to make a good game unless the designer is a believer in what they're doing."

I suppose it depends on whether he thought the R.U.S.E. developers were true believers or not. Newcomb also pointed out how that, in a rush to take advantage of the success of consoles, publishers have left the PC market open:

"When we started this, there was a question about why would we make a PC title? I mean I love PC's, and it's nice to be able to focus on one platform, regardless of the ills associated with it."

"I mean I joke around with people and point out that Facebook is a PC application, and all those Facebook games are played by PC players, and there's quite a lot of them. I think it's a great market, and it seemed like there wasn't as much competition - so many people wanted to jump on the successes of the console, and they left this huge market behind, and I hope we've taken advantage of it."

Raptor Jesus

Raptor Jesus

Jon hasn't bothered to even post a 'Hi, I'm still alive' message in the 'At the Gates' forum in over half a year.
I feel sorry for the folks who pre-ordered or paid on kickstarter for that game. That abandoned game. Thanks, Jon.